


life is a habit that's hard to break

by guardsguards



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brief suicidal thoughts, Getting Together, Ghosts, Haunting, M/M, Mystery, POV Alternating, Pararibulitis (Dirk Gently), Referenced CIA angst, Younger characters, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-09-25 10:00:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9814457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardsguards/pseuds/guardsguards
Summary: Being dead is bad enough, the last thing that Todd needs is a self-proclaimed holistic detective moving into the house that he's supposed to be haunting. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Todd gets.Canon divergence, set about five years earlier than season one.





	1. Culture Shock

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [gentlychallenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/gentlychallenge) collection. 



> Title taken from the wonderful writings of Sir Terry Pratchett

As a former lab rat, Dirk had been woken up in a variety of strange and unpleasant ways in his life. He should have been used to it, really, but after five years on the run he’d gotten rather accustomed to the comfort of waking up to sunlight streaming through the gaps in the curtains (or, on less pleasant occasions, to sweat-soaked sheets and images of scientists with syringes flashing through his mind).

It was unusual to find himself woken up by another person, though. Dirk didn’t spend anywhere near as much time as he’d like in the company of other people.

“Are you _squatting_ in my house?” a distinctly American voice had shouted. Dirk shouldn’t have been surprised by the accent. He was in America, after all, though he felt justified in his surprise at the interruption to his sleep.

After a bit of confused sputtering, Dirk sat up in bed. “Well, I’m- are you not wearing trousers?” he asked, as he actually took stock of the man who’d rudely awakened him. The question didn’t need answering. Once Dirk had blinked away his grogginess, it became apparent that the man was – in fact – wearing nothing but boxers and a worn t-shirt.

“I live here. I’m allowed to wear what I want! You’re the freak who went to sleep wearing a tie and – are you still wearing shoes? Who wears shoes to bed?” Dirk’s feelings of upset at being called a freak were being rapidly overridden by feelings of confusion as he looked more intently at the trouser-less man.

Upon closer inspection, he appeared to be less opaque than the vast majority of human beings Dirk had encountered in his life. Significantly less opaque. Worryingly so.

“What are you staring at?” the trouser-less man asked, and Dirk considered mentally renaming him as the semi-opaque man. After all, his transparency was certainly more notable than his lack of trousers, though Dirk had equally little experience with transparent men as he did with trouser-less men.

“The wall, actually. Well, I suppose I’m sort-of staring at you, but mainly what I’m seeing is the wall behind you. Are you aware that you’re a bit see-through?” Dirk replied, fully awake now and starting to suspect that the universe had led him here intentionally. At first, he’d thought that the universe had just been being cruel by not providing him with enough money for a motel room, but now he could see that being forced to spend the night in an abandoned house had been the universe’s way of leading him to a new case.

Mr No-Trousers seemed a little alarmed at the response, and was occupied with pressing his hands to his own torso, as if making sure they wouldn’t pass through.

“Shit, it looks like that to other people too?” he was muttering

“Oh, good, so you _were_ aware. I thought I might be breaking some pretty alarming news,” Dirk laughed, followed by a relieved exhale.

“It’s still alarming, asshole! You try being dead, it’s confusing!”

“ _Oh_ , you’re a _ghost_. Of course, that makes so much more sense. Are ghosts common in America, then?” Dirk asked, glad to have solved a very small part of the mystery. The ghost did not look glad. In fact, he looked quite angry.

“No. What? No, of course not. Just get out of here, okay? I’ve got… stuff to do,” he snapped.

“Ghost stuff?” Dirk replied with a smile that was slowly transforming into a grin. Before too long, he would be beaming. “Sounds fascinating. I’m Dirk Gently, by the way, holistic detective. Anyway, I need to sleep here tonight, the universe wants me to, and also I’m really, really tired. But don’t worry, Mr Ghost, I will be happy to assist with your no-doubt extremely interesting case first thing in the morning.” From anyone else, that all would have sounded pretty sarcastic and bordering on rude, but from Dirk the words sounded nothing but extremely genuine.

“It’s Todd,” the ghost muttered dumbfoundedly, and Dirk’s eyes flashed with momentary delight before he began settling back down to sleep, toeing his shoes off as he did.

After a few moments, Todd slipped away through the bedroom wall.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Dirk finished saying, through a mouthful of cereal, “That’s basically why ‘holistic’ is the perfect word to describe my kind of detective work.”

Todd was almost as baffled by the explanation as he was by the fact that Dirk – who looked to be in his late twenties – was eating Lucky Charms for breakfast, with everything but the marshmallows picked out. He was starting to wish he’d met Dirk Gently when he was alive, because at least then he could have physically pushed him out of the house.

As it was, Todd had to concentrate very hard indeed just to move small objects like cutlery and stationary. Before a certain holistic detective had rudely interrupted his solitude, Todd had been trying to master written communication, though he’d hit the rather damning obstacle of not being able to locate any paper.

“Is there a reason you’re not wearing trousers?” Dirk asked, derailing Todd’s train of thought.

“I died in these clothes. So, I guess I’m stuck with them forever. I mean, it’s not like you see ghostly pants floating around ready for me to put on.” Dirk nodded, wearing an expression that seemed to say ‘I understand your situation entirely’, even though that couldn’t have possibly been true.

“And how long did you say you’ve been haunting this house?” he continued, popping the last marshmallow into his mouth.

“I’ve lost track of the days, since I can’t sleep or anything, and there’s nothing to do. At least two months, maybe-“

“It’s just that it says in the paper you died eight days ago,” Dirk interrupted, and Todd noticed the newspaper that apparently had been sitting on the counter – vaguely camouflaged by the granite countertop – this whole time.

“Wait, when did you get that? And where? You haven’t left the house since last night.” Todd knew this for a fact, even though he hadn’t had his eyes on Dirk the whole time. Apparently, one of the perks of haunting a house was being able to sense the people who resided within it. He wasn’t sure how he felt about being able to constantly sense Dirk’s presence. He mainly tried to ignore it.

“Oh, this? I picked this up… Gosh, it must be three days ago now. In England, before I flew over here,” Dirk explained, seemingly unaware that he’d created more questions than he’d answered.

“Wait, why did you fly over? And why are you still carrying around a three-day-old paper?” Todd pressed, when it became obvious that Dirk wasn’t going to continue otherwise.

“The question you should be asking, Todd, is why your totally insignificant – no offence – and very American death was being reported in a local English paper. It’s either a sign of a frightfully slow news day, or it’s the universe telling me that I’m needed to solve a case in America,” Dirk said, rustling through the paper and pointing out the article in question to Todd.

**Insignificant Man With Absolutely No Connection To Cambridge Dies Very Far Away From Here Indeed**

Below the absurdly long headline was an absurdly short article explaining that a man named Todd Brotzman had fallen to his death in Seattle, and that there was nothing particularly significant or interesting about this.

“That’s… Is that normal for a British newspaper?” Todd asked, wondering how the journalist who wrote it had even found a job in journalism.

“Not even slightly,” Dirk replied, barely suppressing his excitement, “Well, not for any reputable publication; I’ve no clue what’s going on with the likes of the Daily Mail these days. Anyway, when I read it, I hopped on a flight immediately and began making my way to Seattle. I was rather confused as to why the universe had introduced me to a ghost on my way to solve an entirely separate case taking place in a city that’s a two-hour drive away from said ghost, but then I heard your name and it just clicked! ‘This is Todd Brotzman’ I thought, ‘The insignificant man from the paper!’. And then I fell asleep.”

Todd wondered if Dirk was always like this, or if it was just a result of eating marshmallows for breakfast. Something – probably the fact that Dirk was apparently willing to jump on a transatlantic flight based on information from a newspaper article that was only two sentences long – told Todd that all of this was just the normal behaviour of a holistic detective.

“So, Todd, the question I’ve naturally come to is as follows: if your death was so insignificant and uninteresting, then what exactly am I supposed to investigating?” Dirk leaned forward into his seat, looking at Todd as if eager to hear his response.

Todd looked back at him incredulously.

“I thought I told you already, I have no idea what’s going on here. I didn’t even know this house wasn’t in Seattle! Why am I not just haunting the place where I died?” Todd snapped in frustration.

Inadvertently, he’d given Dirk the mystery that he was looking for.

“Good question! Yes, I think that’ll be a very interesting start to the case, very good stuff indeed, Todd. You know, if you were alive, and able to leave this property, I might have considered making you my assistant.”

Todd didn’t return Dirk’s uncannily bright smile.

 

* * *

 

Two twenties, one five, and loose change. Amanda thumbed through the contents of her wallet one more time and then ran a trembling hand down her face. Forty-five dollars barely covered half of her prescription costs, and after the terrifying flare-up last night, she’d nearly run out of pills.

Trying to conserve medication was a good idea in theory, but the theory didn’t account for just how terrifying it was to suddenly find that the shower was spraying down thousands of sharp needles instead of warm water. It would be a miracle if the remaining pills lasted to the end of the week.

Amanda knew her parents could barely afford funeral costs for Todd, so she couldn’t ask them for money. There was nobody else she could go to. She counted through her forty-five dollars one last time, then tossed the lot of it to the ground and strode off to find her drum sticks.

Music would help, even if she no longer had a guitarist to play with.

 


	2. When Life Gets Messy, Life Needs Ziploc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk tries to figure out why Todd is haunting a house that he has absolutely no connection to. Todd tries to figure out how to handle living with Dirk Gently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There is a very brief moment of suicidal ideation in the third paragraph.

The world was on fire, and there was nothing Amanda could do to put it out.

That knowledge didn’t stop her from grasping at an already-emptied pill bottle with frantic hands and screaming at the uncaring walls of the bathroom as similarly uncaring flames danced over her skin. Cold water from the tap should have helped, but it only seemed to make the flames burn harder until suddenly, there were no flames at all. In fact, her fingers were practically blue from the freezing water she’d doused them with.

The flames may have been gone, but Amanda’s chest still burned from screeching, and she collapsed against the glass wall of her shower cubicle. Sometimes, in darker moments, she found herself wishing that the fire was real. At least then, the white-hot agony would be quickly eclipsed by endless darkness.

If there was an afterlife, Amanda thought bitterly, Todd was probably burning there.

 

* * *

 

“What do you mean, I was cremated?”

Dirk gave him a look, as if to say ‘really, Todd? That’s your question?’

“Really, Todd? That’s your question?” he asked, rendering his facial expression unnecessary, “I don’t know why you’re surprised; you are dead, after all. It stands to reason that you’d either be buried or cremated.”

“Okay, smartass, it’s just a weird thing to think about,” Todd snapped, “Do they usually do it so fast?” In the short space of time that he’d known Dirk, he'd found himself wanting to shove the detective with alarming frequency. Unfortunately, all that Todd could muster in his current state was the ability to sort-of rustle Dirk’s hair, and the first time he’d tried that the detective had just giggled at the sensation, so Todd hadn’t made a second attempt.

“I’ve no idea, really, but I’m ninety percent certain that these ashes are yours,” Dirk said, brandishing an urn that he’d apparently been holding behind his back this whole time simply for the sake of a dramatic reveal. A fancy cursive font on the front of the urn read: _Our Jeremy. May he find peace in the home he once loved._

Todd gave Dirk a stony look, and Dirk attempted to return this look in a way that involved lots of neck twisting and lip-pursing and couldn’t possibly be described as ‘stony’, even with very liberal use of a badly compiled thesaurus. Todd’s expression turned to incredulity, and fortunately no attempt was made by Dirk to mirror this.

“My name isn’t Jeremy,” Todd said eventually, stating the obvious, although Dirk seemed baffled by the reply.

“I didn’t say your name was Jeremy. Keep up, Todd, you may not be assistant material but that doesn’t mean you have to stop all efforts at assisting,” Dirk reprimanded, though it was a very light-hearted reprimand, “What I said was, these are your ashes. Inside the urn. People often store ashes inside of urns.”

“People usually don’t put ashes inside of urns with the wrong name on! Stop acting like I’m the one with the weird ideas here.” Todd forgot himself in frustration for a moment, attempting to grasp at Dirk’s jacket and startling at the detective’s burst of giggles when Todd’s hand passed straight through his chest.

“Oh, that tickles! I’m trying to do detective work here and you’re just distracting me with tickling,” Dirk accused, interrupted part way through by another burst of bubbling laughter as Todd hurriedly withdrew his hand.

“What?” Todd spluttered, feeling his cheeks flush. He wondered if blushing was visible on nearly-transparent skin. “I wasn’t tickling you! That was an accident, ignore it. Focus on the ashes. Why do you think they’re mine?”

“Well, you’re stuck in this house, which you insist you have no connection to whatsoever. And I found these ashes in the basement. Simple logic dictates that these are your ashes, regardless of the name written on the urn,” Dirk explained, then seemed to perk up, as if struck by an idea. “There’s an easy way to find out. Let’s go outside!”

Todd opened his mouth to point out that he was physically incapable of leaving the house, but Dirk – and his ridiculously long legs – were already half way to the front door. By the time Todd got out the first syllable of a no-doubt fantastically articulated reply, the front door had been flung open, Dirk had stepped outside – urn in hand – and Todd suddenly found himself compelled to leave the property.

As Dirk took another step forward into the street, the compulsion turned to a physical force that propelled Todd out of the house via the wall. Despite being incorporeal, Todd still grunted on instinct when he hit the pavement. Or rather, when he landed, floating a couple of centimetres above the pavement.

He was greeted by the very unwelcome sight of Dirk grinning down at him.

“I think that means-“ Dirk began, and Todd cut him off, because he had very suddenly realised what this new breakthrough meant.

“You need to take me to see my sister.”

“I- wait, you have a sister?!”

 

* * *

 

_Todd was ~~an asshole~~ a good brother._

_Ever since I was little, Todd was always there to ~~lie~~ look out for me. Sometimes, I think he needed looking out for more than I did. He was kind of a scrawny kid, but he was also my knight in shining armour. He worked so hard to ~~lie to me~~ help me. _

_It still hurts every day to think of how Todd died, scared and alone, ~~seems like karma~~. It’s a small consolation to know that, in death, Todd can help people the same way he always tried to in life._

_If I could speak to him again, I would tell him ~~how much I miss him, and how much I love him~~ to go burn in hell._

The first draft of Amanda’s speech lay crumpled on her bedroom floor, along with the second, third and fourth. The fifth draft was in her mother’s purse, at the memorial, where Amanda should have been.

When her parents had come to pick her up earlier that day, she’d told them that her attacks were getting more frequent, and that she didn’t want to go and ruin the memorial for everyone. It was more of a half-truth than a lie.

After everything that had happened, Amanda didn’t like to lie.

 

* * *

 

“Are you seriously not done yet?” Todd called, pacing along the upstairs corridor. He didn’t really need to move his legs, he could float around if he wanted to, but there was something therapeutic about the motion.

“Just a minute,” Dirk called back from the bedroom, apparently oblivious to Todd’s impatience.

“How is it even taking you this long to get dressed? I saw the bag you brought with you, it can’t have more than two outfits in it,” Todd replied snappishly.

“Don’t you want me to make a good first impression with your sister?” Todd doubted that Dirk owned the sort of clothes Amanda would be impressed by. Dirk’s wardrobe – or at least, the portion of it that he’d brought to America – seemed to be as colourful as his personality.

“Amanda’s grieving. She won’t care what you’re wearing,” Todd sighed, leaning back against the wall. Or rather, he leaned back through the wall, because passing through walls accidentally was an unfortunate side effect of being able to pass through them deliberately.

Dirk – who Todd suspected encountered lots of strange and bizarre things in his life – still looked surprised to see the ghost who had previously been in the hallway suddenly appearing in the bedroom.

Todd shouldn’t have even felt embarrassed; Dirk was hardly naked. He was wearing trousers and an undershirt, so really, he was more dressed than Todd was. That didn’t make the whole situation feel any less awkward, especially considering how Dirk was still staring at him, and how Todd’s traitorous gaze couldn’t seem to tear itself away from Dirk's exposed shoulders. He didn't even have a thing for shoulders, did he?

All in all, they stared in shocked silence for about six seconds before two things happened at precisely the same moment. Dirk said, “Um, hello,” and Todd phased back through the wall.

“I didn’t mean to do that, that was an accident,” Todd clarified hurriedly once he was safely out of the bedroom. To his immense relief, Dirk seemed to accept that, and went right back to discussing the case.

When Dirk emerged a few minutes later, fully dressed and smiling sunnily, a strange feeling twisted through Todd’s chest. He put it down to being nervous about seeing Amanda again.

 

* * *

 

For a man who couldn’t be physically harmed, Todd still seemed awfully afraid of being in a fast-moving vehicle. Dirk didn’t understand the logic. Twenty minutes ago, Todd had been impatient to get to Seattle as quickly as possible, but now he wouldn’t stop telling Dirk to ‘slow down, Jesus Christ, please slow down’.

Still, Todd’s newfound ability to leave the house – so long as Dirk kept hold of his ashes, at least – made him a good contender for the position of ‘assistant’, and Dirk was keen not to frighten his potential assistant too much, so he slowed down a fraction.

Todd, out of breath from his illogical yelling, exhaled shakily and slumped back in the car seat. He wasn’t technically sitting on it – Dirk had checked – but he was floating so close to the leather seat that he might as well be sitting on it.

“You know, that still feels a little disrespectful,” Todd commented, once he’d caught his breath again, and it took Dirk a minute to follow his gaze and realise he was referring to the Ziploc bag in Dirk’s pocket that the ashes from the urn had been transferred into.

“It’s just much more convenient this way,” Dirk said, rehashing his argument from earlier, “Besides, I’d look sort of creepy if I carried an urn around everywhere. I’m sure I look creepy enough being accompanied by a ghost, I don’t want to make things worse.”

“Right,” Todd muttered, not sounding entirely convinced. Dirk had known Todd for only a brief period of time, but he was already beginning to suspect that not sounding entirely convinced was a permanent affectation.

The car lapsed into an uneasy quiet, Todd shifting to stare glumly out of the window at the grey sky. Dirk had a hunch that Todd’s bad mood stemmed more from where they were driving to than from the Ziploc bag issue.

“So, were you close with your sister?” Dirk asked after a few minutes, voice piercing uncomfortably through the silence. Todd took a while to reply, no doubt lost in thought.

“Um, yeah. Really close. She’s sick, so I take care of her, help her out with money and stuff,” Todd explained, not making eye contact. Perhaps Todd just found rainy Seattle weather more interesting to look at than other people.

“I imagine she’ll be very glad to see you then, though probably a bit shocked to begin with,” Dirk replied, perking up. He had no experience with family reunions, but the idea warmed his heart. Todd, strangely, did not look particularly happy, even as he let out a ‘hmm’ of agreement.

The silence draped back over them, and Dirk, as usual, paid minimal attention to the road. His mind was more focused on thoughts of family, and imagining how nice it must be to have a sister. How nice it must be to have anyone at all.

 

* * *

 

Callum Walsh’s teeth worried nervously at his lower lip as his gaze flicked between the paperwork he held, and the corpse lying on the gurney in front of him.

The greying hair and wrinkled face didn’t seem like appropriate features for Todd Brotzman, aged 27. There was also the worrying fact that – while Mr Brotzman’s paperwork stated he’d died of trauma to the head after a fall – the body on the table had very clearly been mangled in some sort of machinery. The final nail in the coffin for Callum was that Mr Brotzman’s paperwork made absolutely no mention of the amputated leg that the dead man on the table most certainly had. Or rather, didn’t have.

Callum wondered if bereaved families took well to the news that a bumbling mortician had mixed up the bodies of their loved ones.

Probably not.

None of this, he thought, would have happened if the two senior morticians had been there to supervise him. At only three weeks into the job, Callum really was meant to have a supervisor. He supposed it was just bad luck that both Mr Hurnsley _and_ Mr Criggs had passed away about two weeks ago.

Callum wondered if the police had ever caught the machete-wielding woman who had killed the senior morticians. If Callum were a smarter man, he would have also wondered why a double murder had barely been reported in the papers, and why Hursnley and Criggs’ bodies had been taken away by the CIA.

Fortunately, Callum was not a smart man. Callum was the sort of man who made the sort of mistakes that allowed for Todd Brotzman’s ashes to be precisely where they needed to be, rather than where they were supposed to be.

After a few moments of hesitation, he began wheeling “Todd Brotzman” to the crematory. The mistake had already been made, and the Brotzman family would hardly be able to tell the difference when they got the ashes, he decided.

If the universe was capable of conscious thought, it might have taken a moment to really appreciate the convenient existence of men like Callum Walsh.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love my murder child Bart, I couldn't possibly leave her out entirely ;)


	3. Sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk and Todd attempt to explain the whole ghost situation to Amanda.

There was a crazy guy standing in Amanda’s front yard.

This wouldn’t be the first time, but the improbably named Dirk Gently seemed a lot crazier than Amanda’s high school boyfriend, who’d tried to serenade her from the driveway after their breakup. For one thing, Dirk Gently talked to himself. He talked to himself a lot. She’d been surprised to find how talkative he was, considering how oddly silent he had been when she’d first opened the door to him. He’d stood there, looking expectantly between Amanda and the empty space by his right shoulder for nearly a full minute before starting to talk.

That was the other crazy thing about Dirk: he was absolutely convinced that he was accompanied by Amanda’s brother. Amanda’s dead, and recently cremated, brother.

Amanda glanced out of the window to see Dirk still standing there, no longer talking. He looked troubled, and wasn’t that rich? Amanda was the one who should have been troubled. She’d had a bag of ashes – ashes she really hoped weren’t actually human, as Dirk claimed they were – shoved in her face, and had been reminded pretty rudely, several times over, that her brother was dead.

She opened the door a crack, and scowled when Dirk perked up and gave her an uncannily jovial little wave.

“Get off my lawn, asshole, or I’m calling the cops,” she warned, before slamming the door shut again. Really, she wasn’t too scared of Dirk Gently; he wasn’t a threatening-looking guy. Amanda just couldn’t bear to think about Todd anymore. She wanted to forget him; she wanted to forget it all.

The whole situation was ridiculous, anyway. Even if Todd was still alive, he definitely wouldn’t have been friends with somebody like Dirk Gently.

 

* * *

 

“Moron! You’re such a moron! God, of course she can’t see me. Who can see ghosts? Only weirdos like you can see ghosts! And why the hell did you show her the ashes, asshole? Of course, that’s going to make things worse,” Todd yelled. In a way, it was liberating to be able to yell as loudly as he wanted out in public, secure in the knowledge that only Dirk could hear him. In another way, it was completely infuriating.

Dirk at least had the courtesy to look guilty. Good, Todd thought, Dirk deserved to feel bad about this. If he hadn’t insisted on being so… Dirk-ish when introducing himself to Amanda, then maybe things wouldn’t have gone to shit so quickly.

“I’m sure we’ll find a way to make your sister see you,” Dirk offered, obviously trying to help, not realising that just the sound of his voice was making everything so much worse. Things had been going well; Todd was finally going to get the opportunity to put things right with Amanda and then maybe- well, maybe things would have resolved themselves. Maybe Todd being dead would have been atonement enough. And Dirk - who Todd refused to admit he had been starting to warm to – was just supposed to be a means of transport. A way to get to Amanda. Now, Dirk was apparently his mouthpiece, because he was the only person who showed any signs of noticing Todd’s existence.

Todd wanted to punch something. He wanted the satisfaction of impact, something which was impossible to get in his current state of being. In lieu of punching, shouting at Dirk really was the only option.

“Do you even get how much you’ve ruined everything? She’s never going to let you near her, she’s never going to believe a word you say even if you _do_ get her to listen.” Although these were Todd’s own words, their meaning didn’t really sink into his mind until he’d said them aloud, and then something else occurred to him. Something which should have occurred to him much sooner. “I’m never going to be able to apologise,” he said, voice cracking over the words with violent anguish, “She’s never going to know I’m sorry. Her whole life, she’ll never know.”

“Wait,” Dirk interrupted, and Todd barely heard him over the frustration that was blazing through his mind, “Apologise for what? For _dying_? You can hardly be blamed for that, can you? It’s not as if-“

A scream sounded from inside the house, cutting Dirk off, and Todd immediately knew what must be happening. All thoughts of Dirk vanished from his mind, and he sprinted back to the house and right through the wall. He should have been used to it, but it was still a shock to see Amanda on the floor, screaming and thrashing against an agony that nobody else could identify the source of. Todd had always thought he was helpless during Amanda’s attacks, but now he knew what true helplessness felt like. He couldn’t even hand her a pill bottle, couldn’t even tell her it would be alright because she wouldn’t hear him.

“Todd? Todd!” That was Dirk’s voice, Todd realised. He was knocking rather frantically at the front door. “Todd, is she okay? I can’t get in.” Todd cursed, because he couldn’t even unlock the door to let Dirk in. Then again, what use would Dirk be? Dirk who had made such a terrible first impression with Amanda, Dirk who had put Todd’s ashes in a fucking Ziploc bag, Dirk who-

Dirk who was scrambling awkwardly through the half-open window, looking panicked as his eyes fell on Amanda.

“Oh, God!” he exclaimed once he was inside, rushing straight in the direction of the kitchen.

“She needs her medicine, it’s probably in the bathroom,” Todd said, but Dirk - for once – seemed to be ignoring him entirely.

“I think it’s a bit bloody late for _medicine_ , Todd,” Dirk shouted, flinching as Amanda’s screams reached a torturous crescendo, and… why was Dirk filling up a jug with water?

Apparently, the answer was: because Dirk wanted to douse Todd’s distressed sister with water. Which is exactly what Dirk did, because Todd was utterly helpless to stop him.

“What the hell-“ Todd began, but was distracted by the exact same words coming from Amanda. Amanda who – despite now being soaking wet – looked much better than she had moments ago. She was sat up, staring at Dirk.

“How did you know to do that?” she asked. She looked perplexed, and so did Dirk.

“It seems like a pretty standard response when somebody’s on fire. Perhaps I shouldn’t have broken in though, Todd looks like he’s going to be very angry with me for that. I’ll show myself out,” Dirk replied, already making his way over to the window he’d entered through.

“You could see it too?” Amanda asked, and the look on her face made something clench in Todd’s chest. Of course, Amanda wasn’t naïve enough to trust Dirk immediately, but there was something in her expression that was reminiscent of a look she used to give Todd. Back before he had died, before she’d found out about the lies, before she’d stopped seeing him as her saviour.

It was a look that held something akin to hope.

 

* * *

 

_202-555-0113_  
_We can meet on Tuesday_  
_-A_

Dirk fiddled with the handwritten note in one hand, and glanced worriedly over at Todd, who – now that he knew nobody else could see him – seemed to be making much less effort to look corporeal. In this specific instance, Todd was reclining in the passenger seat with his legs fully immersed in the glove compartment from the knee downwards. It was a little disconcerting to look at, but Dirk looked anyway, because he was worried about his new friend.

“It’s just four days,” he said. He was only driving a few miles-per-hour over the speed limit, which was a testament to the sombreness of the moment. “Waiting four days to talk is much better than not talking at all.”

In all honesty, Dirk wasn’t a big fan of waiting either, but the thought of waiting with Todd as company was much more pleasant than the thought of waiting alone. He doubted Todd felt the same way. After the events of the past few hours, Dirk’s optimism vis-à-vis Todd’s feelings towards him had taken a severe hit.

“I shouldn’t have shouted at you.”

The words came out of the blue, and Dirk was so thrown by them that he nearly drove into oncoming traffic. Then again, Dirk was quite often on the verge of driving into oncoming traffic, so not much could be deduced from that.

“You were upset,” Dirk replied, somewhat tentatively.

“Being upset isn’t an excuse for being a dick. Look, you’ve just been trying to help. I can see that. And… And you really helped Amanda, when I couldn’t. It’s not your fault she can’t see me,” Todd sighed, “Getting to talk to her in four days is better than nothing.”

Four days was apparently the length of time Amanda needed to come to terms with Dirk’s ability to see her hallucinations – it had been quite a shock to find out that the very realistic looking fire had only been a hallucination – and with the fact that her brother may be less dead than she had thought. She’d explained this while scribbling out the note, apparently sceptical of Dirk’s insistence that he could just get her mobile phone number from Todd.

“I guess what I’m saying is… I’m sorry. Okay?”

Dirk certainly hadn’t expected that. People didn’t often apologise to him, and when they did, it was rarely an actual apology. It was usually more along the lines of “Sorry, what did you say?” or something of that nature. Dirk took a moment to remember the appropriate response.

“Well, apology accepted,” he eventually settled on, which seemed to be acceptable as Todd gave the slightest hint of a smile, “You know, this may even be a good thing. Four days is ample time to investigate the other details of your case. Like, for example, why you came back as a ghost in the first place, since you’re the only ghost I’ve ever seen.”

“Maybe that should have been the first question we asked,” Todd replied, and Dirk frowned for a moment, seeming to start a response, then cutting himself off before making a little ‘ah’ sound.

“Yes, that does seem like it should have been a rather pressing question from day one, doesn’t it?” Dirk eventually conceded, “We’ll remedy that, just as soon as we get back. And perhaps after we’ve run by the shops, I think I may need a new Ziploc bag.”

“A new- wait, why?” Todd asked, going in an instant from mellow introspection to alert suspicion.

“It’s just that the current bag is a little worn out in the corners, and may have let slip one or two little specks of ash,” Dirk explained, downplaying things as much as one could downplay the loss of a dead person’s relics when speaking to said dead person.

The shouting that followed was just as loud as the shouting from earlier, and yet Dirk was much more confident that their blossoming friendship would survive it this time around.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t often that the universe gave Bart names. Sure, the universe always let her know who was meant to die, but usually there was a lot less forewarning. It was more of a gut instinct sort of deal; the universe would give Bart a squeeze in the gut and Bart would do whatever immediately came into her mind. Whether that was grabbing a weapon, opening a door, or just staring. Whatever it was, it inevitably resulted in a death and the universe – satisfied – would release its grip on Bart’s gut, and Bart would know the right person had died.

Names were a lot less common. Bart’s teeth gnawed thoughtfully against the side of her thumb as she visualised it, the name that had arrived in her head in big bold letters just over a week ago.

**A M A N D A**

It was weird; last time Bart had been given names, they’d been full names. When that had happened, she’d still been in the building with the white rooms and the endless tests. The names had arrived in the night, a list branded to the inside of Bart’s eyelids until she’d killed them all. Mostly doctors. One army guy. All dead now.

The lack of a surname seemed almost insignificant in comparison to the other glaringly out-of-place detail. Amanda didn’t feel like a person who needed to die. Amanda felt… Like something Bart had never felt before. A word that might have referred to her once, in foggy days that she barely recalled. She knew it wasn’t a word for strangers, but she was also certain that she’d never met this Amanda person before.

Bart grunted and pushed her foot down harder on the accelerator. The universe wasn’t usually this confusing; hazy instructions were a new, and slightly frustrating, phenomenon. Bart had to do something though, so – until she came across somebody who was actually supposed to die – she was going to look for Amanda.

Amanda who, somehow, felt like a sister.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens! People who have read my other fic may notice a tiny reference to Project Marzanna in this chapter, because I'm still in love with the idea of Bart going on a murder spree killing all the bad people that worked on Black Wing. Also, I shamelessly took the whole 'Dirk being able to see Amanda's pararibulitis attacks' idea from the comics, it'll be important in this AU!


	4. Penthus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Todd and Dirk have four days to kill before they see Amanda again.

**Eight days earlier**

“Why over the phone? You’re such an idiot, what sort of shitty person says that over the phone?” Todd hissed to himself, slamming the bathroom door shut and pacing the tiled floor. He hadn’t even meant to tell Amanda the whole truth, not all at once anyway. He’d intended to reveal it bit by bit, to lessen the impact.

The problem with a lie as long-spanning as Todd’s lie was that it didn’t come in bits. It came as one huge and horrible mess. It was a thousand small lies that were impossible to detangle from each other; he had barely felt the first, but recently each new one felt more and more like a restraint, tight around him and impossible to ignore. Todd was at the centre of the world’s worst elastic band ball, which had just been sawn in half to reveal the now warped and deformed figure in the centre.

He thumbed open the button of his pants; a shower would clear his head. He heard the phone ringing – probably his parents – and ignored it.

Todd felt the wet floor against his feet, and blamed the leaky sink that he hadn’t gotten around to telling his landlord about. In fact, the whole bathroom felt wetter than it should have, considering he hadn’t even turned on the shower yet. The phone continued to ring, and he continued to ignore it as wetness curled through his hair and as out-of-place chlorine stung at his eyes. He felt water filling his lungs, and would have ignored that too, except pararibulitis attacks were rather difficult to ignore. Todd knew this, despite never having experienced one himself until that very moment. He clutched at his throat, eyes widening. He fell. His skull briefly and painfully made acquaintance with the corner of the bathtub on the way down.

Todd felt the wet floor against his head – which was not the fault of a leaky sink, but rather the fault of Todd’s now-leaky skull – and had one last thought before the world faded to black. The thought was not _‘this a terribly ironic death for somebody in my position’_ , though perhaps it should have been. Rather, the thought was a name, hurled out at a probably-unhearing universe in one final burst of emotion:

**A M A N D A**

 

* * *

 

“When the newspaper said you’d died from a fall, I was imagining something rather more dramatic,” Dirk said, actually having the nerve to look disappointed. Perhaps it was less malicious to wish a dramatic and terrifying death upon somebody when you met them post-mortem.

“I don’t think you have a right to complain about how I died,” Todd snapped, “Anyway, that’s not the important detail here. The important thing is that I lied to Amanda. That’s why she’s mad at me, that’s why I’ve got to find a way to say sorry.”

“Oh, yes. You did screw up a bit there, didn’t you?” Dirk mused. For somebody who’d gotten teary-eyed over a commercial about abandoned dogs yesterday, Dirk seemed to be taking in the tragic story of Todd’s death very well. Actually, Todd wasn’t surprised. He’d known Dirk for about three days now, and he only had so much surprise in him; he was saving it up for when Dirk did something truly astonishing. With Dirk, a truly astonishing situation was somewhat of an inevitability.

Despite all of this, Todd was alarmed to find that ‘warming to Dirk’ had slowly turned to ‘actually liking Dirk’. This was a dangerous path that had led to worrying thoughts about how nice Dirk may or may not have looked when doing certain activities.

Todd blamed it on what he had come to refer to as the Ghost Rules. Ghost Rules had come about as a result of Dirk asking constant hypothetical questions about Todd’s current state of existence that – in most cases – Todd hadn’t really been able to answer himself without a bit of experimentation. He’d transcribed the Ghost Rules on paper that Dirk had bought for him, though his on-and-off ability to hold onto the pencil had made the whole task quite a struggle. The rules were as follows:

 

> _Ghost Rules_
> 
> _1\. Only Dirk can see me_  
>  _2\. I can’t travel too far from my ashes_  
>  _3\. I can move through walls and other stuff_  
>  _4\. I can hold small things, sometimes_  
>  _5\. I can “sense” people nearby (when I’m “haunting” a building)_  
>  _6\. I can’t change my appearance (hairstyle, clothes etc.)_  
>  _7\. You can put your hand through people and make them feel funny and tickly!_  
>  _8\. I don’t get tired, hungry or thirsty_

Number seven had been added by Dirk and – frustratingly for Todd – the only eraser in the house was much heavier than the pencil and so he couldn’t lift it. Hence, number seven stayed in place.

Dirk had stuck the shakily-written list to the fridge like a proud parent once it was completed, on day two of waiting for a meeting with Amanda. Day one had mostly been spent experimenting with the limits of what Todd could do: how far he could stray from Dirk when they were outside (about 25 feet); could he travel to the centre of the Earth (no, it was freaky to travel more than a few feet underground); could he taste food if he licked it (only really salty or spicy things); could he play the guitar (not really, since he could only manage to successfully pluck at the strings every five attempts or so); could he give and/or receive hugs (an experiment that Todd had refused to participate in).

Todd hated to admit it, but experimenting with the limitations of his new form with Dirk had been fun. And not just fun by his newly lowered ghostly standards, fun by normal standards. Of course, when they were done for the day and Dirk had fallen asleep, leaving Todd alone to his thoughts, he’d felt horribly guilty for forgetting all about Amanda for nearly a full day. He’d barely thought of her; Amanda who was suffering, with no money for medication and no brother to help take care of her.

The next day, they’d written up the list of official Ghost Rules, watched trashy TV that Dirk found endlessly amusing and gone to the zoo so that Todd could get up close to the animals, and Todd had let Amanda slip from his mind once again. When Dirk had fallen asleep that night, Todd had felt guilty again. Well, he'd felt guilty after he was done spending nearly an hour just watching Dirk doze fitfully. Dirk talked in his sleep, soft words muffled against the pillow that were somehow still endearing. Whatever Dirk had dreamt of, it must have been nice, because his happiness had filled the room like a marshmallow-y pillow that Todd had been tempted to stay enveloped in for the whole night.

Todd blamed this new-found interest on the fact that Dirk carried Todd’s ashes everywhere he went, and slept with them on his bedside table. It was strange and morbid and – Todd hated to admit – the most practical solution. The downside was that, as per Ghost Rule #5, Todd could sense Dirk in a way that he wasn’t used to being able to sense other people.

To begin with, he had just been able to pinpoint where in the house Dirk was at any given moment. Over time, it had graduated to being able to vaguely sense Dirk’s mood even when they were apart – which was a rare occurrence in itself. Now, Todd could sense Dirk’s heartbeat if he just made a little effort to hone in on it.

Of course, Todd hadn’t told Dirk the full extent of what Ghost Rule #5 entailed. It would have made things weird, and things were already weird enough without having to have the ‘I can feel your heartbeat and I sort-of want to watch you sleep sometimes’ conversation.

“-is that a common thing for ghosts? Getting lost in thought, I mean? Only you’re the one ghost that I know and you seem to do it a lot and – oh, you’re looking at me. So you’ve re-entered the conversation. You are once again fully present, well, as fully present as you can be when you only kind-of exist. Wonderful, I hope you don’t mind but I just kept talking when you zoned out there, I was in the middle of a train of thought,” Dirk was saying. From anybody else, those words may have translated to annoyance, but Todd could feel the warmth of contentedness emanating from Dirk. He wondered if everybody’s emotions would feel as nice as Dirk’s; he hadn’t yet had the chance to test Ghost Rule #5 on anybody else.

Part of him suspected that it wouldn’t be quite the same with somebody other than Dirk, but that part of him was deeply buried enough that the realisation barely made an impression on Todd’s conscious mind.

Beside him, Dirk continued to talk.

 

* * *

 

Dirk’s cases didn’t often come in convenient sections. Rather, they came as a jumbled-up mess of tangential links that he followed on a series of whims, one of which eventually led to a solution.

This case was different. It was different for a variety of reasons, but the main difference was that it seemed to come in rather convenient sections. Step 1 had been figuring out why Todd was haunting a house that he had no apparent link too. Step 2 had been taking Todd to see his sister. Step 3 was helping Todd and Amanda to have a conversation.

Of course, that break-down of the case didn’t involve Dirk’s personal favourite step: Super-Secret Step 2.5. This step involved distracting Todd from his Amanda-related woes for four days, while simultaneously becoming Todd’s friend.

As was usual with Dirk’s cases, he experienced a major breakthrough with Super-Secret Step 2.5 when he was least expecting it.

He awoke in a cold sweat, sitting up and heaving in a few deep breaths. The universe promptly punished Dirk’s gluttony for air by making his lungs burn as he tried to regulate his breathing again. Nightmares never seemed to become easier to deal with.

“Bad dream?” a voice from beside him asked. Perhaps it should have been alarming to wake up from a nightmare to find a ghost on his bed, but Dirk only felt immensely comforted not to be alone. His shaking hands steadied a bit where they gripped at the sheets. “Do you get them often?” Todd continued, when Dirk nodded to his first question.

“Not every night,” Dirk replied, “Were you watching me sleep?”

Todd apparently hadn’t expected that very reasonable question; he looked thrown and rubbed at the back of his neck in a way that suggested he very much _had_ been watching Dirk sleep. “Uh, well, not exactly? The past ten minutes or so, I felt… Shit, I should have mentioned this earlier. I could feel that you were upset. Ghost Rule number five,” he explained, sounding distinctly apologetic. Dirk didn’t fully understand why. He liked having Todd there with him.

“I thought number five just meant you could figure out where I was in the house?” Thinking about the logistics of Ghost Rules was a good way to distract his mind from less pleasant thoughts, thoughts of metal instruments and of instructions in cold, distant voices.

“It changed. I didn’t want to weird you out by telling you,” Todd replied, sounding sheepish. Dirk just nodded thoughtfully, then smiled.

“So, you wouldn’t be overly surprised to know I’d feel better if you stayed here for the night? If you don’t mind, of course,” he said, and Todd’s mouth hung open a little before he seemed to collect himself.

“Um, sure. I mean, I can’t read minds, but sure. I can stay, if you want.”

Dirk was too sleepy to worry about coming on too strong. He liked Todd, and evidently Todd liked him enough to come and check on him when he was having a nightmare. That was all that mattered for the time being.

“Thank you, Todd,” he murmured, shuffling back to lie down. He didn’t even realise that he’d stretched his arm out over the top of the sheets until he felt the unique, tingly sensation that contact with Todd brought about, and flicked open one eye to see Todd’s hand resting gently on top of his own.

In the morning, he would wonder if Todd could tell he’d dreamt about the two of them.

 

* * *

 

**Six years earlier**

“Proposed Project Penthus. Currently located in Seattle, USA,” Dr Miller read aloud from the briefing form. Dr Patel listened, managing in her own unique way to look both bored and attentive. “Initial readings of psychic energy were picked up during a city-wide scan. Results were narrowed down and the subject was observed directly by an undercover Black Wing operative, disguised as law enforcement.”

“No need to go into so much detail about the disguise aspect of it. Best to get to the bit about abilities as quickly as possible, if you want to catch Riggins’ attention,” Dr Patel interjected, leaning across the table to make a correction on the form with red pen. She wasn’t usually the helpful sort, but she had a soft spot for Dr Miller, who had a calculating edge to her clichéd young-and-hopeful personality.

“Right. So, abilities. Penthus shows remarkably strong, but as yet completely uncontrolled, psychic abilities. Currently, these manifest through a disease known as pararibulitis – please see Addendum 2.02 for details. Further observation suggests that pararibulitis attacks correspond with moments of heightened emotion. Our current research team theorises that the psychic energy could manifest in other ways, if given an alternate outlet,” Dr Miller read.

“Alright, now for the kicker.” Dr Patel gave a rare smile.

“We are requesting initial funding of $50,000 in order to bring Penthus into the facility and carry out more extensive testing. We strongly believe that Penthus’ psychic abilities could be harnessed for more useful purposes than these pararibulitis attacks, but we simply cannot know the full scope of possibilities without having the subject here for experimentation,” Dr Miller finished, immediately looking up to gauge her mentor’s response.

“Good. Much better than your last draft. Just use the word psychic as often as you can and Riggins will fall for it,” Dr Patel replied, with a roll of her eyes, “Though you know you’re never going to get funding. Black Wing’s budget has been cut down so many times this past year, it’s practically non-existent.”

“It’s worth a try,” Dr Miller insisted, slipping the briefing documents into a plastic wallet and filing them away neatly.

“I suppose. What did you say Penthus’ real name was again? Brotzman?”

“Yes,” Dr Miller replied, “Todd Brotzman. He’s around the same age as Icarus.”

“And does he realise he’s the one making his sister sick?” she asked. Dr Miller shook her head, and Dr Patel rolled her eyes again. “People are so damn impressed by psychics, but they’re dense, the lot of them!” she exclaimed, “He’s out there producing some of the most remarkable results we’ve ever seen, and he doesn’t even have the sense to know something’s different about him.” Dr Patel scoffed as she pocketed her reading glasses.

“ _Bloody_ psychics.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, things got a lot more AU-y this chapter! I've been excited to do that end reveal for a while now.
> 
> Also, I'm going to use this space to shamelessly plug the Dirk Gently Big Bang challenge. Check out dghdabigbang on tumblr for more info! Beginner writers and artists welcome!


	5. Who's gotta die?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Todd and Dirk prepare for their meeting with Amanda, and another unexpected meeting takes place.

Rough brick scraped against Bart’s back through her shirt, and she snarled out a guttural sound as she twisted away from the wall and plunged six inches of rusty steel into her attacker’s throat. Blunt-nailed fingers left bloody marks on her trouser leg as the man dropped to the floor. She didn’t spare a moment to watch his final few breaths rattle out of him.

Instead she dropped the knife, wandered back into the store - which the now-dead guy had been in the process of robbing when Bart had arrived – and started to grab bags of chips off of the shelves. After a moment of uninterrupted shoplifting, a tremulous voice sounded from behind the register.

“H-hey! You can’t just… You’re getting blood on everything, lady!” Bart turned towards the source of the noise, and a pale teenage face immediately ducked back down under the register.

“I need food. You don’t gotta hide; I ain’t gonna kill you,” Bart replied with a roll of her eyes, grabbing a few packets of beef jerky for good measure.

“You killed that other guy,” the cashier shot back, which seemed an odd fact to get hung up over, considering how the other guy’s gun has been pressed to the cashier’s forehead only minutes ago.

“He was about to blow your head off. Universe wanted him dead. Your lucky day, I guess,” Bart said, stepping away from the shelves when she’d picked up as much food as she could reasonably carry back to the car. The cashier opened his mouth to reply, then made the sensible decision to just shut up.

With a snort of amusement, Bart turned to leave, stepping over the dead guy on her way out.

It was funny, she thought, as she dumped her meals for the next few days into the back seat of the car, that the universe only seemed to give her names when it was in no rush. It had taken her years to kill the last batch of names that had arrived in her head, and although Amanda’s name had been floating around in her skull for nearly two weeks, Bart’s routine hadn’t changed much. She drove wherever she felt like driving, and usually killed somebody whenever she stopped. No Amandas yet.

She tore at a stick of beef jerky with her teeth and started the car up again. Bart had no doubt that Amanda would turn up suddenly – and most likely violently – in her path soon enough. It was only a matter of time.

 

* * *

 

“It just doesn’t make _sense_ that you can’t walk upside down,” Dirk insisted for the seventh time that afternoon, jabbing his pen at the messy diagram he’d drawn to illustrate his hypothesis. The diagram showed an upside-down stick figure walking on the ceiling, the stick figure labelled ‘Todd’ and the ceiling labelled ‘ceiling’.

“I can see the picture, Dirk, you don’t have to keep showing it to me. What I’m saying is, it’s just not working! I don’t know why, maybe it’s something to do with rule six,” Todd replied, sounding rather exasperated, and inadvertently demonstrating another facet of Ghost Rule #6 when he ran a hand through his hair and his hair remained completely unchanged.

“What does not being able to change your appearance have to do with it?” Dirk asked, “You can still sit down, it’s not like your body’s frozen. I think you’re just making excuses because you don’t want to show me all of your cool ghost powers. You should try again.” Todd just rolled his eyes and flopped back down into sitting position – though he wasn’t sat on anything tangible. Evidently, he didn’t feel like making another attempt.

Dirk couldn’t really begrudge Todd his lack of effort. He’d woken up that morning to find Todd still at his side, though he’d moved his hand away from Dirk’s at some point in the night. Dirk couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt so much overwhelming affection for another person, the sort of affection that had made him want to pull Todd down to lie next to him for a few more lazy hours so they could doze, or talk, or perhaps share something more than just smiles and not-quite touches.

Besides, Dirk had only brought up the ‘walking upside-down’ matter in the first place as a way to distract Todd from less welcome thoughts. Ever since that morning, when Amanda had replied to Dirk’s text and agreed to meet at a coffee place near her house, Todd had been somewhat of an anxious mess.

“Why do you think she wants to meet at a coffee shop?” Todd asked suddenly, and Dirk kicked himself inwardly; he’d been quiet for too long and, evidently, Todd’s thoughts had wandered away from Dirk’s cleverly invented distraction and back into anxious Amanda-related territory.

“Perhaps she just doesn’t fancy hosting?” Dirk suggested, trying to keep things light-hearted, but Todd was already shaking his head.

“No, Amanda hates going out. She’s always worried she’s going to have an attack,” he muttered, frowning down at the floorboards as if they were to blame, “It’s because she still doesn’t trust you, she doesn’t want you in her house. Or she’s planning on standing you up. She’s not going to listen, she’s never going to-”

“Now, Todd, you’re overthinking this a little,” Dirk said, walking over and doing his very best to give Todd’s ghostly form a pat on the back, “Amanda is probably just being justifiably cautious. Look on the bright side! Tomorrow, you’ll finally be able to explain everything to her.”

“But I can still only talk to her through you,” Todd added bitterly. He’d expressed the same sentiment a few days ago, but this time he didn’t put so much emphasis on the ‘you’, and Dirk was disproportionately glad to know that Todd only resented the fact that he needed an interpreter, and not the fact that this interpreter happened to be Dirk.

“We’re going to figure something out, Todd,” Dirk replied, “I promise you that.”

Todd shifted back to look up at him, the movement prompting a surprised squeak and then a burst of giggles from Dirk as his precariously positioned hand passed through the hazy outline of Todd’s form and into his torso. He pulled his hand away, beginning to shake out the sensation of pins and needles before he was stunned into stillness by the look on Todd’s face.

Todd’s eyes were soft, his eyebrows just slightly drawn in at the centre and his lips quirked up ever so slightly in the corners. It couldn’t be called a smile, but it was an indication that a smile might have been there if Todd hadn’t been so concerned about his meeting with Amanda. The look as a whole made Dirk’s heart flutter in his chest, something which was only exacerbated when Dirk remembered that Todd could feel his heartbeat now - thanks to Ghost Rule #5. Sure enough, when Dirk refocused on Todd’s face the expression had been replaced with one of bemusement, though a trace of the original look – which Dirk had cautiously labelled as ‘affection’ – remained. Dirk’s cheeks flushed.

“Everything okay?” Todd asked, and Dirk nodded vigorously.

“Perfectly fine. That was nothing but a slightly belated response to my hand being – well, um – _in_ you. It really does evoke quite a strange sensation. You know, perhaps you shouldn’t listen to peoples’ heartbeats without permission,” Dirk said, words coming out just about as quickly as his mouth could form them.

“It’s hard not to hear when it’s so dramatic,” Todd replied with a smirk, and if Dirk hadn’t been so terribly embarrassed he would have taken a moment to be glad that Todd didn’t seem worried anymore.

“Hardly dramatic,” Dirk huffed, then quickly changed the subject, “I’m going to make dinner. You can practice stirring again, okay? I’ll use one of the lighter spoons.”

Considering that Todd had ascended beyond the trappings of his corporeal form, it was really quite impressive that Dirk could feel Todd’s gaze on him like a physical force as he turned and headed through to the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

Amanda had never considered herself particularly lucky, especially when the pararibulitis attacks had started. The events of the past couple of weeks, though, were enough to make her believe that she was cursed. This went beyond just bad luck.

There was another crazy guy in her front yard, except this crazy guy wasn’t just standing there. He was sitting, presumably, in the beat-up car that he’d just driven straight onto Amanda’s lawn, nearly hitting Amanda – who was just heading out to meet up with Dirk – in the process. She wasn’t even sure how anybody was driving a car in that state, the windows so muddy that they surely couldn’t be seen through.

Amanda was presented with two options: hide out in the house and call for help, or confront the crazy guy. Hiding out in the house hadn’t worked out so well last time.

“Hey, asshole, this isn’t public parking,” she shouted after a moment of stunned silence. The reply was the sharp screech of a rusted car door being flung open.

It turned out that crazy guy was, in fact, a crazy girl, though a mop of matted hair and a loose button-up shirt managed to almost entirely conceal that fact.

“Are you Amanda?” the crazy girl demanded, and Amanda couldn’t help but be reminded of Dirk. The resemblance went beyond just the fact that both Dirk and this strange woman had trespassed onto Amanda’s front lawn in the past week. The woman’s rough voice suited her perfectly, in the same way that the bubbling tone of Dirk’s voice suited him perfectly.

“Yeah. Who the hell are you?” Amanda demanded right back, and an expression crossed over the woman’s face. It was a very particular expression that somehow seemed to convey the fact that, although the question was asked often, this was the first time the woman had felt compelled to answer it in a long while.

“Bart,” came the scraping reply, followed by a pause, followed by, “You need somebody killed or something?”

“What?” This seemed like just about the only suitable response to such an out-of-the-blue question.

“I’m an assassin,” Bart explained, as if those three words were a sufficient explanation that didn’t invite about a hundred more questions. She seemed to notice Amanda’s confusion, because she went on to clarify, “That means I kill people.”

“I know what it means. It just doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d tell random people,” Amanda snapped, then hesitated before adding incredulously, “Is this how you get jobs? You just introduce yourself to strangers and ask if they need people killed?”

Perhaps Amanda ought to have been more intimidated by a self-proclaimed assassin, but she hadn’t been high on self-preservation instinct recently. Bart seemed to find the question funny.

“No, I’m not like that. You’re sort of… I dunno what you are, exactly, but you ain’t what I’m used to,” she said, a reply which clarified nothing at all. Bart seemed good at replies which clarified nothing at all. “I’m a holistic assassin, see? I go where the universe wants me to go, and kill who the universe wants me to kill. And so I came here, ‘cause the universe wanted me here. But the universe don’t want you dead, which is weird, but I guess I’ve just gotta stick with you until the universe shows me somebody who _does_ need killing. Maybe it’s you, and I just gotta wait a while… But I don’t think so. You feel like… something else.”

Amanda switched between feeling confused, alarmed, and more confused as Bart rambled, a series of emotions that eventually settled into a general acceptance of what her life had become. Maybe Todd dying had just driven her insane, she thought, and these crazy people entering her life were just products of her own crazy mind.

“Okay… This is something. This is very clearly something. We should probably talk about what this is, because you’re crazy, but the last crazy person I talked to actually turned out to be kind of helpful. So, we’re going to talk this out,” Amanda decided. It was probably a dangerous and stupid decision, but it felt good to finally take control of things.

Bart seemed confused, which served her right, really, for how confused she’d made Amanda already. Still, after a moment she shrugged and followed Amanda inside the house, leaving her car door wide open and a trail of slightly bloody boot-prints in the hallway.

 

* * *

 

Todd was tapping his foot anxiously against the floor of the coffee shop, except he wasn’t focusing on where exactly said floor was, so it would have been more accurate to say that Todd was moving his foot in and out of the floor very rapidly. Regardless of how the action was described, it was quite clear that Todd was nervous.

“She’s late. Her place is only like five minutes away by bus, how is she this late?” Todd muttered, and Dirk would have liked to give Todd a reassuring pat on the back. He’d rather mastered the skill of patting just close enough to Todd’s back to resemble a proper back-pat, without actually letting his hand pass _into_ Todd’s back. Unfortunately, patting Todd’s back when nobody else in the coffee shop could see Todd probably would have attracted unwanted attention. Instead, Dirk sipped slowly at his hot chocolate, and then spoke.

“I’m certain that it’s nothing to worry a-“

Dirk’s phone buzzed where it sat on the table, and both man and ghost glanced down at it simultaneously.

_Something came up. I’ll be late, maybe an hour?_

It was from Amanda. No amount of complementary whipped cream and marshmallows could stop Dirk’s heart from sinking when he saw that. Todd’s nerves had been ramping up all day, and giving them another hour to get even worse was far from ideal. Still, he was sure Amanda had a good reason for delaying the meeting, and he told Todd as much. Todd reacted predictably badly.

“She’s probably just trying to come up with an excuse to ditch us,” he moaned, “I knew it! She doesn’t believe I’m still alive or – not alive – whatever, she doesn’t believe I’m here. And even if she did, she wouldn’t want to talk to me, who am I kidding? She probably hates me. She has a right to hate me.”

“Now, Todd, I’m sure she doesn’t _hate_ you. She can’t blame you for dying, as I’ve told you before, you could hardly help it.”

“Not for dying, for… For what I did.” Todd’s face had contorted into a concerned sort-of scowl.

“What you did? What did you do?” Dirk asked, which was an obvious question, but Todd still looked completely thrown by it.

“It was just a… No. It was nothing, I didn’t mean any one thing,” Todd sighed, which didn’t sound much like the truth. On top of that, he was looking over at Dirk with guilt written all over his face, though he hid it quickly enough. “You’re right, she probably just got held up by something stupid. Nothing to worry about. We just have to kill some time. Do you want to just wait here?”

Dirk was half-tempted to press and ask again why Amanda would hate Todd, but he also didn’t want to see that awful expression of guilt on Todd’s face again, so he let the matter slide.

“Um, I suppose we could wait here,” he replied. With a thoughtful ‘hmm’, Dirk cast his gaze around the coffee shop and then froze abruptly, looking out of the window to his left and onto the street.

“Or,” Dirk continued, growing grin audible in his voice, “We could do something that’s sure to be much more enlightening.” Todd followed his gaze out of the window, saw what he was looking at, and groaned.

“You can’t be se-“

“I’m entirely serious! Come on, we’re going,” Dirk decided, standing up and striding out of the coffee shop with Todd in tow. Dirk wasn’t usually the type to abandon a mug of hot chocolate that still had two marshmallows left in it, but sometimes the universe presented him with opportunities that simply had to be taken. One such opportunity was sat directly across the street to the coffee shop, with dark curtains and a neon sign that read:

**Medium Services:**  
 **Communicate with those**  
 **who have passed on**  
 **$40/hour**  
  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update took longer than expected, apologies for that, but I hope you enjoy it! Bart meeting Amanda was ridiculously fun to imagine.


	6. Marzy, Madison, Misfortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Todd and Dirk visit a medium as they wait for Amanda.

**Three years earlier**

“I knew you would come here, Marzanna.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I told you ages ago the universe wants you dead, don’t take a genius to remember something like that,” Bart replied brusquely, reaching to grab the gun that she’d secured in the waistband of her pants.

Scott Riggins - sitting at his desk with a pen still in one hand - had the look of a man who had accepted his fate two years ago, when his research programme had lost its final subject along with the last of its funding.

“We never meant to _hurt_ you or Icarus… You probably don’t want to hear that though, do you? Final words must get boring when you’ve heard so many,” Scott mused. Bart gave an ambivalent shrug.

“I’m used to hearing you talk a lot, even if I ain’t heard it in a while,” she replied, “Better than hearing people scream.” The gun was now aimed and - although Bart’s stance was far from perfected - neither of them had any doubt that the bullet would hit its intended target.

“I’m glad you’ll still be out there to protect Svlad when I’m gone. He needs somebody to look out for him.”

A bullet tore through Scott Riggins’ skull a split second later, but that didn’t cut his sentence off early. His speech, like his life, had ended at precisely the moment it was supposed to, and – as people invariably become just a little more in tune with the universe in the moments before their death – Scott had known that those words would be his last. He had chosen them carefully.

“Svlad?” Bart mumbled, right hand dropping back to her side and teeth worrying at the thumb of her left, “I ain’t seen Svlad in years.”

 

* * *

 

“Welcome, cosmic traveller,” a tinny voice greeted as Dirk stepped into the dimly lit shop, holding the door open for Todd in a completely useless, but begrudgingly appreciated, gesture. The welcome message had evidently been automated, because the front desk was unoccupied, save for a small bell and a sign that read ‘No need to ring the bell, Madison will sense your arrival’.

“Why even have a bell then?” Todd muttered in annoyance after reading the sign, which Dirk had totally ignored in favour of fawning over a pair of black goldfish swimming about in the desk aquarium.

A few minutes passed – Todd floating around looking impatient, and Dirk cooing at the goldfish – before a woman suddenly popped out from behind a heavy velvet curtain. She looked surprised to see Dirk.

“Welcome. I sensed your presence the moment you arrived,” the woman – presumably Madison - said after a slight pause. Todd snorted in disbelief; Dirk nodded sincerely.

“It says on the sign that you’re a medium?” he said, and Todd rolled his eyes. His bad mood wasn’t helped by the fact that Dirk was ignoring him, though in Dirk’s defence, it was Todd who had suggested that strategy of testing whether the medium was the real deal or not before they’d entered.

“Oh? You’re here to communicate with the other side?” Madison asked, seeming unreasonably surprised about this fact for somebody who advertised herself as a medium, “Sorry, dear, I was certain you were here about your romance issues.”

“Romance issues?” Dirk repeated, voice suddenly strained, “Um. No. No, I’m not here for that.” He glanced abruptly over at Todd, seemed to see something that made him panic, then looked back at Madison. “There are no romance issues in the first place, I don’t know where you got that impression, perhaps you should stick to talking to the dead.” She seemed amused rather than offended, which Todd was almost disappointed by. The sooner Dirk got kicked out for doing something ridiculous, the sooner this sham would be over and done with (and the sooner Dirk would stop pretending Todd wasn’t floating right by his shoulder).

“As you wish, child. It’s $40 an hour, paid up-front. Cash or card?” Dirk fumbled in his jacket pocket, pulling out $40 dollars in bills and nearly dropping the Ziploc bag of ashes in the process. Todd barely reacted; they’d had so many near misses with his ashes at this point that it was hard to muster up any alarm.

“Cash,” Dirk replied, giving a confident smile that seemed to say ‘these most certainly aren’t human remains’ as he placed the money on the desk and shoved the ashes firmly back into his pocket.

Perhaps Madison saw that kind of thing often, or perhaps her sight wasn’t so good outside of the spiritual realm, because she made no comment, simply shuffled through the bills on the desk and then pocketed them.

“Right this way. I have a space in the back more suited for communicating with the other side; spirits’ voices can be soft and hard to hear through the noise of our earthly plane,” she explained. Dirk nodded sagely, but seemed to have no issue hearing Todd’s disbelieving groan through the noise of their earthly plane, because he smirked as he was led into the back room.

“And… would you say that your abilities allow you to sort-of _instantly_ sense any… shall we say, lingering spirits?” Dirk asked, taking a seat on one side of the velvet-cloth covered table in the back room. Madison certainly seemed to have a fondness for velvet.

“Yes, though lingering spirits are rare, and I certainly don’t see any surrounding you,” Madison replied. Todd scoffed.

“Right, so she’s obviously a fake. Can we go n-“

“I do sense, however,” Madison interrupted, without even realising that she was interrupting, “A particular spirit who has passed over, and wants to contact you.”

“Is it Todd?” Dirk pressed, and Todd scowled. It didn’t count as a successful reading, he thought, if Dirk just told her all of the information.

“No, I’m afraid there’s no Todd reaching out. This person is… Scottie. Or perhaps you just knew him as Scott,” she said, affecting a low and distant tone and bowing her head a little. Todd was on the verge of scoffing again when he saw that Dirk’s face had gone white, as if he’d seen a ghost. A ghost who was good deal scarier than Todd.

“I knew a person called that,” Dirk conceded after a pause so long that Todd was surprised Madison didn’t interrupt him, “But he’s not dead.” Madison’s face twisted in pity.

“I’m afraid he is quite dead, dear, a few years ago now. A brutal passing, he was murdered… murdered by somebody he cared for greatly, though I sense that he wasn’t surprised at their actions.” Dirk no longer seemed to be making a conscious effort to ignore Todd, rather he seemed to have become so immersed in the words that he no longer noticed Todd a mere two feet away from him, floating and frowning.

“Scott is worried for you. He worries that your companion is a grave danger to you. He says he… he knows this companion. Or knows _of_ them, at least.”

“He’s lying,” Dirk snapped, so abruptly and so uncharacteristically angry that both Todd and Madison jumped a little. Todd could swear he saw wetness glinting in the corners of Dirk’s eyes as he continued, “I suppose dying doesn’t stop somebody from being a liar. He doesn’t know the first thing about Todd, and Todd is a good deal better than he is… Was.”

Madison seemed to have come out of her trance during Dirk’s outburst, and she gave him a sympathetic expression. “The spirits who communicate with us aren’t always those we want to listen to, I’m afraid. You see, dear, the immortal plane isn’t so much a plane of existence. It’s more… a series of imprints; imprints of knowledge, of emotion, of ideas. No consciousness tying these imprints together, but occasionally they will overlap – or connect - and give a clear enough impression for me to hear,” she explained, and it sounded like nonsense to Todd, but Dirk was nodding again. “

“But you can’t see Todd,” Dirk sighed, “This all… you seem genuine, but if you’re genuine then why can’t you see Todd?”

Todd was about to point out that Dirk hadn’t really given a proper explanation of the whole ghost thing, but he was cut off.

“I sense a great energy around you, Mr Gently,” Madison replied, and Dirk didn’t seem at all surprised by the answer until she added, “More than just the energy emanating from you, which I suspect you know about already. Rather, this is an energy that is attached to you, following you. Whatever you believe this energy to be, I can assure you that it is not a departed soul in any form that I recognise. The dead are vague… scattered and fragmented. This energy is concentrated, and powerful.”

Todd frowned. Madison was making him sound like some sort of dark force, and what was more disconcerting was that she was now glancing worriedly in his direction.

“Take this business card, I think you’ll find it useful,” she said after a terse moment of quiet.

“Oh, but I know where your shop is, I can just pop in if-“

“This isn’t my business card. It belongs to a colleague, of sorts, Norene. She has a rather specialised knowledge of energies, the sort that I know very little about. I get the feeling she’ll be able to give some insight into your case.”

Dirk did a surprisingly good job of hiding the shock that sparked through him when he saw the business card, but Todd felt the way his heart stuttered in his chest – though Dirk had tucked the card away in his pocket before Todd could get a better look.

There was a pause, Dirk’s face still unnaturally pale, before he bid Madison an awkward farewell and took his leave, Todd trailing behind. This time, Dirk didn’t hold the door open for him.

“Okay, we’re out now, are you going to explain all of th-“

“Oh, look at that! Amanda texted just a few minutes ago, she’s in the coffee shop. We’d best hurry back over,” Dirk exclaimed, in a way that made Todd certain he would have made some sort of exclamation even if Amanda hadn’t messaged, simply because he wanted to avoid the conversation at hand.

As his thoughts drifted to Amanda, though, Todd found that he couldn’t begrudge Dirk the desire to avoid a revealing conversation. He let the matter drop, and followed Dirk reluctantly back across the street.

 

* * *

 

Dirk kept glancing nervously over at him, and Todd didn’t know whether his blatant concern was endearing, or annoying.

Amanda and Dirk had been chatting for a few minutes now, and Todd hadn’t really come up, though that was probably for the best. Diving right into talk of ghosts hadn’t worked so well last time.

“Anyway, you needn’t worry about being late. I’m delayed by strange goings on _all_ the time, I completely understand,” Dirk was saying, grinning as he sipped at his second hot chocolate of the day. Amanda seemed much more talkative this time around, though it clawed at Todd’s chest to hear her lament about how she’d been having more attacks than usual in recent weeks.

“You seem like that sort of guy,” Amanda replied, letting out a barely-there laugh that Todd was listening keenly enough to pick up on. A traitorous part of his mind told him that Amanda wouldn’t be laughing if she really believed Todd was there, she would be scowling, and probably storming out in justified anger.

Dirk sent him another worried glance, and Todd waved it off.

“So – um – to the matter at hand. Your brother,” Dirk began haltingly, and panic constricted Todd’s lungs for a moment. Breathing wasn’t necessary for a ghost, but apparently feeling short of breath was still very much a thing that could happen.

“Look, you’re a nice guy, Dirk – Mr Gently? – no, Dirk. You’re nice, and obviously you’ve got something going on if you can see my attacks, but I sort-of need some real proof if you want me to believe my brother’s spirit is following you around,” Amanda replied, looking dubiously at Todd – though in her mind, she was probably just looking at the empty space where Dirk believed her brother to be.

“Oh, of course. If you want proof, I can answer any question about him, something only he would know. Not that I’ve been making a particular effort to memorise facts about Todd – no, that would be weird – but I can ask him myself and he’ll tell me the answer and I can relay it to you! Right, Todd?”

Todd sighed but nodded. It felt like the universe was counting down to something. To the moment when Amanda would become truly upset as she recalled the awful things Todd had done, or perhaps to the moment when Dirk would realise what an awful person Todd really was, or perhaps to the moment when somebody would burst through the glass doors and create a distraction from the awful conversation they were approaching.

The universe was evidently a multi-purpose stop-watch, as it was counting down to all of those moments at once.

“A question only Todd knows the answer to? How about you ask him why he lied to everybody who loved him,” Amanda replied with a bitter laugh.

“Sorry, what?” Dirk’s question was directed more towards Todd than Amanda, but it was Amanda who answered it.

“About being sick? About needing money for medicine? If he hadn’t told me the day… the day that he died, I would never have known. How fucked up is that?” Todd’s tongue felt like a dead weight in his mouth, and he could practically see the change in Dirk’s face as he processed the information.

He averted his gaze, looking at anything but Amanda’s anger and Dirk’s disappointment. Looking, as it happened, at the glass doors as a woman with a mess of matted hair burst through them.

“Who the hell is-“ That was Todd.

“ _Bart_ , I told you not to follow me here-“ That was Amanda.

“Marzy?” That was Dirk, voice softer than the two that came before, but somehow throwing the room into an odd silence. Perhaps Todd had misheard, but the word that seemed to have been punched out of Dirk in a disbelieving exhale didn’t make any sense to him.

Amanda apparently knew this woman, and Amanda was getting up and stepping away, and Todd couldn’t let that happen. He’d waited so long to tell her everything, and now that Dirk knew the truth, he would leave and then Todd would have even less chance of talking to Amanda (and Dirk would be gone, which he couldn’t admit would hurt just as much). He could see the future winding out in an ugly path before him, and in that moment, Todd knew he would do anything to stop it.

Before he could reach out and ineffectively try to pull Amanda back, though, she had stopped. She was staring down at her left forearm, and Todd was so lost in his own worries that it took him a moment to notice Dirk shouting and rushing over and was pressing a wad of napkins to Amanda’s arm, as if suppressing the bleeding of some invisible wound.

“Todd? Todd!” Dirk’s frantic voice broke through the ringing in Todd’s ears, “Please, you have to tell me how I make it stop, I don’t know what to do. Todd!”

Todd – the only person in the coffee shop who had any experience with pararibulitis, who also happened to be a lousy brother and a terrible friend – was so overwhelmed that he said nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

**Ten years earlier**

It took all of Dr Miller’s self-control not to press her nose the glass of the observation window as she watched another mannequin tumble to the ground. Marzanna’s movements were so vicious that it was easy to forget she was human, let-alone only fourteen years old.

A sharp breath caught in Dr Miller’s throat as one of the motion-activated flame throwers blazed to life, the fire struggling to catch on Marzanna’s clothes before the flame thrower itself seemed to sputter out and die. All of the weapons in the room had been checked a dozen times by a dozen different people before the start of the experiment, but nobody on Project Marzanna was surprised that all of them seemed to have mysteriously stopped working. They were used to that.

It was thrilling to watch the subject in action, and Dr Miller was still constantly amazed that – at only three months out of university – she’d been accepted onto a programme as prestigious as Project Black Wing. She suspected Dr Patel had put in a good word for her.

This was more than a success. This was the stuff of dreams, Dr Miller thought; Marzanna would become the greatest asset in the history of the CIA. As she began to scribble down a note on timings, she was momentarily distracted by a soft voice from the far corner of the testing chamber – a reminder that not every project could be as successful as Marzanna.

“Marzy?” the voice tremored, and Dr Miller muted the speakers and picked up her Dictaphone to begin recording results.

“Experiment M106.3 audio log,” she began, “Recorded by Project Marzanna assistant researcher, Norene Miller.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want to actually mark this down in case it changes, but I'm guessing that there'll be about 4-5 more chapters before this reaches a conclusion. Hope people are enjoying it so far!!


	7. Lurking, That's What All Good Threats Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the meeting with Amanda that didn't go exactly as planned.

“So, then I came _back_ from England because of a particularly interesting newspaper headline, and that’s where Todd comes into it. You see, Todd was haunting – not in a scary way, I feel like there’s a certain scary connotation that comes with all this ghostly terminology, but I can assure you that Todd’s very pleasant – anyway, he was haunting the house where I-“

Dirk’s rambling explanation wasn’t intended for Todd. It was intended for the woman with the raggedy hair and the badly-fitting clothes who was sat slumped seatbelt-less in the back of the car. Bart, she said her name was, although Dirk still slipped periodically and called her ‘Marzy’ – Todd still hadn’t figured out where that nickname came from.

Amanda’s attack – during which Todd had been characteristically useless – had been pretty effective in cutting their meeting short, so now Todd and Dirk were heading back to the house, with an extra passenger in tow. Todd knew that the conversation would have been over even without the attack. The idea that Amanda might not ever forgive him was becoming less of a worrying thought, and more of a very real possibility.

“Why’s he got the front seat if he ain’t real?” asked Bart, and Todd bristled even as Dirk rushed to his defence.

“I didn’t say he wasn’t real. It’s just that he’s not quite as physically present as he used to be. I’m still not entirely sure whether we’ll end up solving that little issue during the case, but Todd’s doing very well as a ghost, aren’t you Todd?” Dirk was giving him a supportive smile, and part of Todd felt bad for ignoring it, but a more significant part of him was very invested in staring grumpily out of the window.

Todd didn’t like having Bart in the car, despite the fact that he had been the one to insist she come back with them rather than staying with Amanda. It had seemed like a good idea at the time – keeping the self-proclaimed assassin away from his little sister – but an hour into the car journey and with Ghost Rule #5 starting to come into effect, Todd was becoming uncomfortable.

Beside him was Dirk’s increasingly familiar presence, a firm heartbeat that was liable to quicken skittishly at the slightest provocation or excitement, but which was ultimately comforting to listen in on. Behind that was the still-murky presence of Bart, short-lived enough that Todd wasn’t able to hone in on anything specific beyond a sense of glowering danger and an unsettling steadiness that persisted through Dirk’s jumpy conversation and even jumpier driving.

“I liked Amanda more. And not just ‘cause she ain’t dead,” Bart replied bluntly. Todd wanted to say that he liked Dirk more than Bart, and not just because Dirk was a lot cleaner and a lot less murderous. Todd didn’t say that, though. Instead, his silence became a little more disgruntled as Bart continued, “It’s good you’re still alive, Svlad.”

“It’s Dirk, now,” Dirk interjected quickly, “And I’m glad that you’re alive too, of course. I didn’t doubt you would be, you always did have a knack for – um – living.” Bart’s only response was a shrug and a throaty sound that could have been agreement. Todd still didn’t fully understand the nature of how Bart and Dirk knew each other; Dirk didn’t seem very talkative about the subject, and Bart didn’t seem very talkative about anything that wasn’t related to the here-and-now.

“You got a knack for getting hurt, I remember that,” Bart mused with a snort that turned into a laugh. Bizarrely, Dirk was smiling along with her. Todd also didn’t understand how whatever childhood they’d shared could have simultaneously produced somebody rough and intimidating like Bart, and somebody eccentric and incompetent like Dirk.

“Never too hurt, not when you were around… I’m sorry I never came looking for you after, well, everything. I wouldn’t have known where to start,” Dirk said. Bart just shrugged again.

“Universe didn’t want you looking for me.”

“But it seems that now the universe means for us to work together. Or at least do _something_ together, otherwise it wouldn’t have sent you to Amanda,” Dirk continued, as if that made perfect sense, as if there were no such thing as purely random coincidences that meant absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Actually, the more time Todd spent with Dirk, the less he believed in the randomness of random coincidences.

“So, there’s somebody she’s meant to kill? That’s how it works, right?” Todd said, finally breaking his silence. He could swear that he felt Dirk’s heartbeat jump a little, even though he wasn’t making an effort to hone in on it. “If she’s here, and she’s a- what was it? Holistic assassin? Then by your logic, somebody’s going to get killed, by her. And it’s probably not me.”

“Yeah, probably,” Bart replied, at the same time as Dirk hurriedly cut in.

“Well, it doesn’t mean someone necessarily has to die. And Todd, you shouldn’t joke about that. We still don’t know the exact nature of your ghostliness, and if anybody’s going to be able to kill a ghost, then it’s Marzy.” Bart grinned at that, making a throaty sound of amusement.

Todd tried to push her presence out of his mind, and focus instead on Dirk’s familiar, bubbly aura. Bart felt like a lurking threat, although Todd wasn’t sure yet what it was that she was threatening. He also wasn’t sure that he wanted to find out.

 

* * *

 

Dirk awoke with a dazed groan, the bedroom still draped in velvety darkness and the limpid glow of moonlight. Strangely, he hadn’t been woken by a nightmare. In fact, his dreams had been unusually pleasant, despite the fact that they’d mainly revolved around ghosts – or rather, one ghost in particular.

He wasn’t entirely sure what had woken him up, until he glanced down to find a semi-opaque hand against his chest. The hand was hovering carefully in place, maintaining the illusion of resting against Dirk’s shirt, except every few moments it would slip slightly, fingertips passing through Dirk’s chest and sending tingles sparking out across his skin. It wasn’t unpleasant, per se, just hard to ignore.

“Todd?” he murmured, “Is something wrong?” It seemed logical that Todd would only be touching him to try to get his attention, but Todd didn’t have a particularly urgent look about him.

“Bart,” Todd replied after a moment, voice lowered but still sharp-edged. If Dirk looked closely, it seemed like the moonlight was reflecting just slightly off of Todd, sending faded beams of light scattering across the room. It was pretty, but Todd wasn’t looking at the moonlight. He was looking at Dirk. “I can’t ignore her while she’s in the house. Ghost Rule #5, she’s very… It doesn’t matter. It’s just easier if I’m here, then I only feel you.”

Dirk couldn’t pretend that he fully understood that, but he figured anybody would find it hard to understand what Todd was experiencing. He just accepted it with a sympathetic nod, until a thought crossed his mind.

“Is my presence not a bother anymore, then?” He said it lightly, but Todd looked sincere when he shook his head.

“It’s nice. It’s kind of… grounding,” he murmured. Dirk propped himself up against the pillows, and Todd’s fingers followed his movement carefully, looking quite convincingly as if they really were pressed against Dirk’s chest. “I realised that I can hear it all the time now. Your heart beat. I have to make an effort if I want to ignore it, and even then, I can’t, not really.” There was a pause, where Todd seemed to be thinking and Dirk’s mind was racing looking for a suitable response, until Todd continued, “I don’t want to ignore it, though. That’s another thing I realised.”

Perhaps if Dirk’s brain had been running at full capacity, he could have heard those words without them being twisted into something different – something romantic – in his mind. As it was, though, a blot of red pigment spread across his water-pale face.

“Um,” he started, voice catching traitorously in his throat, “Thank you. You’re – uh – you can stay here for the night, of course. If it’s easier for you. Besides, it would probably be useful if I had another-“

“What if I want to do more than just stay here?” Todd cut in, his gaze intense and fixed on Dirk. For a brief moment, Dirk swore he could feel Todd’s palm on his chest, as an actual physical presence rather than just a sensation of scattered pins and needles. The feeling lasted right up until a creaking sound came from downstairs – probably Bart – and Dirk jumped, the illusion shattering as Todd’s hand slipped past the flesh-and-bone barrier that should have stopped it, would have stopped it if Todd had still been alive.

“More?” Dirk asked, when the moment had well and truly passed and Todd had hurriedly withdrawn his hand from the space it shouldn’t have been able to occupy.

“At first, I thought it was just because you were the only person who could see me. I mean, you’re bound to feel a connection with the only person in the whole world you can talk to, right?” Todd said, and Dirk still wasn’t really sure what he was getting at. “And you’re not exactly my usual type. But this isn’t exactly a normal situation for me… for anybody. So I thought it was just because I was lonely, and sure, I don’t usually watch my friends sleep, but I figured that was just a ghost thing.”

Todd gave Dirk a look that seemed to be asking if Dirk was even slightly on the same page as him, and Dirk would have liked to say that he was, except he still suspected that his sleep-addled brain was reading the book upside down, or - more likely – was reading the wrong book altogether, so he didn’t say anything. Todd, surprisingly, continued anyway.

“Then Bart came along. And I can feel her the same way I could feel you in the beginning, but it’s not the same. That’s how I realised this is different, this isn’t just a ghost feeling, this is a… human feeling, I guess is the term. A human feeling that I don’t even know what to do with because I can’t even _touch_ -“

Todd stopped speaking, his sharp gaze sharpening even more as it flicked down to focus on Dirk’s chest. Evidently, he could hear the rabbit-quick fluttering of Dirk’s pulse as the words processed in his mind and – more importantly – as the meaning finally became too obvious to ignore.

“Are you saying… you _like_ me?” Dirk asked, probably sounding too incredulous, but it was hard not to sound that way because he was very incredulous at the idea. Todd was a ghost, which on its own was enough to make dating unlikely, and Dirk just wasn’t the sort of person who ended up in relationships.

Dirk wasn’t the sort of person who ever had the opportunity to end up in relationships, at least.

“I might be,” Todd began, then his expression tightened minutely, and he corrected himself, “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. And I can hear your heart beat right now, so I know either you feel the same way, or I’ve just really freaked you out.”

_“Scott worries that your companion is a grave danger to you.”_

The words of the medium swam through Dirk’s head, no longer addled by sleep so much as it was addled by a frustrating mix of longing and caution. The universe didn’t seem to be guiding him here, and he felt adrift. Experience told him that circumstance would tear Todd away soon enough, or rather, Todd would leave of his own free will when he didn’t need Dirk anymore. It hurt more to think of it that way.

_“This energy is concentrated, and powerful.”_

But Todd wasn’t leaving. Todd couldn’t leave, he was bound to his ashes and Dirk was currently the only one who had those. Besides, this might be different, Dirk thought. Todd wasn’t doing this for the case, Todd was doing this because he liked Dirk – really, genuinely liked him – and so perhaps Todd wouldn’t leave.

_“How about you ask Todd why he lied to everybody who loved him.”_

Todd was still watching him, and a moment of horridly churning indecision became a moment of startlingly bold decision.

Dirk kissed him.

It was arguably not even a real kiss, since all Dirk’s lips could really do was graze up against the space where Todd’s lips appeared to be. Still, contact with his translucent form sent a sparking current through Dirk, a tingling sensation which was somehow both familiar and utterly novel.

Dirk wanted to press closer - a desire so visceral he could feel it thrumming through every muscle in his body – but he couldn’t. There was no ‘pressing closer’ when ghosts were involved; pressing closer to Todd was synonymous with falling through Todd and onto the bed beneath them. Dirk couldn’t grip Todd’s shoulder, or thread his fingers into Todd’s hair, or slide an arm around Todd’s waist, no matter how badly he wanted to do all of those things.

The kiss-that-wasn’t-really-a-kiss ended as quickly as it had begun, and despite the electricity that had been coursing through him moments ago, Dirk very abruptly felt his tiredness return. It was still the middle of the night; revelations and not-quite-kisses and love-struck looks didn’t change that fact.

With an awkward reluctance, he let Todd know as much and Todd – who clearly still remembered how it felt to be tired, although he no longer slept – understood. Dirk would be useless for further mystery-solving in the morning if they stayed up all night figuring out the newly formed and as yet unnamed bond between them.

As Dirk settled back down, Todd’s hand returned to its earlier spot on his chest. He dozed off to Todd’s uncharacteristically rambling speech.

“I’ll stay, you know. I want to stay. I wouldn’t have stayed, before I died, I would’ve been the sort of asshole to leave as soon as I found a way to move around on my own or… or get a body again, even though that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen now. But I’m not going to be an asshole about this. Whatever happens. I’m going to be reliable for once in my life.”

By that point, Dirk had lapsed too far into slumber to remind Todd that he didn’t technically have a life anymore, but he still heard the words. In his dreams, a hand rested solidly against his chest.

 

* * *

 

**Five Years Earlier**

“What the hell is this?”

Dr Patel’s voice echoed through the basement room, stone walls and looming metal equipment doing nothing to absorb the sharp words.

“I call it,” Dr Miller began, pausing for dramatic effect, though excitement still radiated off of her, “The P.E.D.D. It stands for Penthus Energy Diffusion Device.” Dr Patel didn’t seem to share her excitement as she gazed at the immense metal arch that occupied the centre of the room. Two red lights glowing from either side of it seemed to suggest that the device was not yet activated.

“How did you get the money for this?” Dr Patel snapped. Something about the device disconcerted her, but she wasn’t one to cower in the face of an unfounded ‘bad feeling’ and so she circled it, heels clacking against the concrete floor. “Black Wing barely has the funding for new lab coats! And you never even got approval to bring Penthus in, he’s still out mingling with civilians. How could you possibly have raised enough to get this built?”

“Penthus is just untapped energy, you see, so if he’s to be any use to us, we need to collect that energy. And it would take years to train him to harness it, years that we simply don’t have,” Dr Miller replied, seemingly making no attempt to actually respond to Dr Patel’s questions, “But with this machine, we can pull the energy straight out of him. Doesn’t that seem like the sort of solution a board of executives would just _love_?”

“Norene, goddamn it, where did the money come from?” Dr Patel demanded, her hand slamming angrily against one side of the metal arch. She didn’t see the lights turn green, she only saw the guilt twisting its way into Dr Miller’s expression.

“I realised a little while ago that they’d given me access to the budgeting spreadsheets. Must have been an accident when they were setting up my account. It wasn’t too hard to siphon of some funding from the various projects and then cover my tracks,” she admitted after a terse moment, “Just a little from each one. Morally, I don’t see the issue, we all know Black Wing is getting canned soon. What’s the harm in expediting the process, if it helps my research into Penthus? You heard my proposal, Dr Patel, Penthus can do _so much_ if we just-“

Dr Miller didn’t need to finish justifying her actions. Suddenly, there was nobody left to justify them to. Dr Patel’s lifeless body couldn’t hear her explain away what she’d done, and if Dr Patel’s spirit was somehow still present then it was probably concerned with more pressing matters than the embezzlement of funds.

It took Dr Miller a moment to process what had happened. During that moment, her eyes flicked from Dr Patel’s slumped corpse on the floor, to the green glow of the machine’s lights, and then to Dr Patel again. Across the arch of her foot was a thin black line of seared flesh where she’d stepped just barely through the arch of the machine, and had promptly experienced what one might expect from the Penthus Energy Diffusion Device. Her energy had been diffused. The readings on the nearby monitor indicated that Dr Patel hadn’t had much energy to give in the first place.

Dr Miller took one last look at the scene before her, then buried her face in her hands, a manic burst of laughter punching its way out of her along with an exclamation that no living soul was around to hear.

“Shit.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter draws ever closer...


	8. Call Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk and Todd re-learn how to act around each other after the kiss, Bart is oblivious, and decisions are made.

The knife tore straight through the bread – soft and weak as it was – for the tenth time, and Bart huffed in frustration. Dirk had made the act of getting butter onto bread look simple, but Bart’s attempts had left her with a tattered piece of bread, buttery fingers, and an empty stomach. She didn’t even understand why the bread needed to be buttered, she could just eat it dry. Dirk had apparently picked up a lot of fancy habits since they last saw each other.

“Where’re we going next, then?” she asked, finally looking up from the endlessly frustrating task. The ghost was standing at least two feet closer to Dirk than he had been when Bart started her buttering.

“We should follow the lead the psychic gave us, right? I mean, it’s the only lead we have right now,” Todd replied, and Bart could tell Dirk was reluctant even as he nodded along. She wasn’t always so good with expressions, but she’d seen reluctance in Dirk often enough to recognise it with ease. Todd, apparently oblivious, turned to Dirk and kept talking. “You never actually showed me the business card; it was somebody called Norene, right?”

“Hmm? Oh. Yes, something along those lines. You know, I’m not even entirely sure I kept hold of that business card,” Dirk replied, voice pitched higher than usual as he moved his hand very slightly to push a little corner of cardboard deeper into his pocket. Todd didn’t seem to notice - the movement was angled away from him - but it wasn’t angled away from Bart.

“Is it that thing in your pocket?” she asked through a mouthful of unevenly buttered bread. Dirk practically flinched.

“Oh. Yes, look at that,” Dirk exclaimed, sounding very surprised for somebody who’d been touching the card just moments ago, “It _was_ in my pocket. Yes, thank you, Marzy. Bart. But really, I doubt it’s anybody who can really give any insight into anything, or at least no insight that’s particularly insightful, not so insightful that’s it’s worth wasting our time on.”

As Dirk spoke, Todd took the card out of his pocket. Bart hadn’t been aware that ghosts could pick things up at all, but it was obvious that holding the flimsy piece of card wasn’t easy for Todd. Sure enough, as soon as he began speaking and lost his focus, the card simply slipped through his fingers and drifted down to the floor.

“Norene Miller,” said Todd, “We might as well see what she can tell us; what other leads do we have?” It barely took Bart a second to recognise the name. She tended to remember the names of people she spoke to – even though she met a lot of people, she didn’t meet many who lived long enough for introductions.

“Does that mean Dr Miller’s the person I’ve gotta kill?” she asked abruptly. It made sense to Bart that Dr Miller would be somebody she’d end up killing; she’d killed so many of the other doctors from back then, after all. Dirk – who had gone uncharacteristically quiet – made a stressed little sound high in his throat.

“You don’t have to kill- wait, did you say Dr Miller? How did you know she was a doctor?” Todd asked, leaning through the kitchen counter and closer to Bart, “I didn’t read that part out loud.” For the first time since they’d met, he seemed to be paying more attention to Bart than to Dirk, and something about having Todd’s full attention was disconcerting. Bart couldn’t put her finger on what it was; she tried to ignore it.

“Dirk knew her too, she was one of the doctors, at-“

“Fine!” Dirk exclaimed, cutting Bart off, “We’ll go to see this Norene person, who might not even be- Whoever she is! We’ll go to see her.” He paused, looking entirely out of his element, then quickly blurted out, “I need to get some things ready.”

Before Bart could even raise her eyebrows at the outburst, Dirk was gone, the front door slamming behind him.

“Why’d he go-“ Bart started, only be to be cut off again. Apparently, Dirk and Todd both had a lot to say, and not a lot of time to listen.

“He just left to get out of talking to me. I can’t follow him if my ashes are in the house,” Todd explained, looking both dejected and frustrated, “And he knows I can’t carry them around myself. He’s avoiding me.”

“I can carry them,” Bart pointed out. It seemed obvious, but clearly it hadn’t crossed Todd’s mind because as soon as the sentence was out in the room, his face twisted into a look of confused distaste.

“No… No, that’d be… He’ll come back eventually,” Todd muttered, before hastily making his way out of the kitchen, leaving Bart alone with her bread.

She ate the rest of it – the lack of butter not bothering her in the slightest - and wondered to herself why the universe had taken so long to send her after Dr Miller.

 

* * *

 

Todd could feel Dirk the moment he re-entered the house. In all honestly, he hadn’t realised how many days he’d spent at Dirk’s side until suddenly Dirk was gone and Todd couldn’t feel him, no matter how much he concentrated. So, the moment Dirk stepped back over the threshold, Todd’s mind was flooded with a familiar buzz of frenetic energy, though the soft haze of affection that Dirk usually emanated seemed dulled.

It took a worrying amount of effort not to immediately rush to the front door when he felt that sweetly familiar presence, but Todd was patient. He waited for Dirk to walk from the living room upstairs to his bedroom, and then waited another fifteen minutes before finally allowing himself to slip through the bedroom wall.

Dirk didn’t notice him enter. He was standing over the bed with his back to the wall Todd had phased through, and his attention seemed entirely fixed on a scrap of paper held in one pale hand.

> _From the desk of Colonel Scott Riggins_   
>  _1-844-872-4681_   
>  _Call me if you get in trouble again_

The first line was a typed header, but the rest looked like it had been scrawled hastily, ink blots nearly obscuring the second half of the phone number. As Todd stepped closer, he misjudged the distance and accidentally brushed against Dirk, who whipped around so sharply that it looked as if he’d be touched by a live wire.

“Todd! I didn’t notice- How long have you been there?” Dirk asked, hastily shoving the scrap of paper back into his suitcase. It was too late though; Todd had already seen it, and recognised the name from their visit to the medium.

“Not long. Who’s Scott?” Todd asked, then quickly corrected himself, “Who was Scott?”

Dirk hesitated. It wasn’t the same sort of hesitation that had accompanied their first kiss the night before. There was no nervous excitement, only nervous nervousness.

“He was- I never called him Scott. He was always Colonel Riggins, even when I was small.” Todd gave Dirk a look, prompting him to continue – and he did, although not really in the vein of answering Todd’s question. “I called the number once, about a year ago. I was in a sort-of bad situation… and I wasn’t really thinking things through. When nobody picked up the phone, I thought that was the universe telling me I could solve things on my own, that I didn’t need him anymore. But now I know the truth. There was just nobody to answer the phone, he was probably dead by then.”

“So you and Bart grew up together… with a military guy and doctors? Because of the holistic thing?”

“I wouldn’t say together. Sometimes years went by where I never saw her, and then sometimes I saw her every day, I never really knew exactly what was happening,” Dirk explained, voice stilted, as if he had to force his mouth to shape every word when it really didn’t want to say them. “Black Wing, that was the official name. I don’t know what you’d call it. Research, training… Suffice to say that it wasn’t the most pleasant part of my life, and I feel infinitely better to be away from it all. I didn’t ever intend to go back to it, to any of it, or any of the people I met there.”

Dirk gave Todd an uncertain look. “You know what that’s like, don’t you? To have a part of your life that you’d just rather not dwell upon, everything with Amanda… Well, I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it,” he continued softly.

The room fell into an uncertain silence, the only sound a crashing from downstairs - presumably Bart discovering the ins-and-outs of living in a house. Todd wanted to put a hand on Dirk’s shoulder, or maybe even hug him. He hadn’t been much of a hugger when he was alive; he couldn’t help but think that – if he ever got a physical form again – hugging Dirk would be one of the first things he’d do with it.

“You don’t have to go see Dr Miller. I mean, it might be like you said, she might not even be a proper lead,” Todd offered, and Dirk turned to him with a gaze that looked half-sad, half-fond.

“No. She’s connected. That’s just how things end up around me. Dr Miller is so tied up in all of this that she’s almost certainly exactly the person we need to see,” he sighed, “But thank you, Todd. You’re a good…”

Dirk trailed off, evidently at a loss when it came to describing what Todd was to him after the events of last night. Todd didn’t know how to describe it either - he didn’t know how to put a label on any of this - so he did the only thing he could think to do. He kissed Dirk, in the strange and delicate way that they’d both adapted to so quickly, the only way they could with Todd’s minor issue of not really existing in the physical sense.

The kiss seemed to be enough though, because Dirk was smiling down at him with that impossible fondness that sometimes overflowed from his expression. Being the subject of that gaze felt like standing in direct sunlight, the warmth just verging on too much and the brightness bleaching everything else into an unimportant white.

“You’ll still be with me, whatever happens. Right, Todd?”

Todd was struck by the statement, because being so painfully aware of his own mortality came with the acute knowledge that he couldn’t possibly promise that. But Dirk knew that too, and perhaps that was why he’d asked. Todd returned the smile, and gave his reply with uncharacteristic certainty.

“Right.”

 

* * *

 

Todd – wonderful and amazing assistant that he was – had offered to do the talking when the time came to phone Dr Miller. Dirk had almost taken him up on the offer too, until they’d had the simultaneous realisation that Dr Miller was most likely a member of that very large chunk of the population who couldn’t see or hear Todd. That meant Todd handling the call wasn’t an option.

They’d both taken one glance at Bart and made the unanimous, silent decision that she couldn’t be the one to phone either – which left only Dirk.

The mobile phone felt like a brick in Dirk’s grip once he’d dialled the number, and even Todd’s hand resting – or pretending to rest – on his knee didn’t help much. Remembering that it was Todd he was doing this for helped a little more. Todd was more than just a case now, after all.

The dial tone ended as Dirk was in mid-thought, and the unexpected sound of a voice on the other end of a line – which really shouldn’t have been unexpected, given the general nature of phone calls – threw Dirk off. Every phrase he’d planned fled from his mind, and he was left scrambling for syllables.

“Hello, yes, I’d like – or rather – we’d like an appointment with Dr Miller, please, as soon as possible. About a potential psychic issue,” Dirk blurted out, voice much too fast and much too loud. He wasn’t sure what sort of reply he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what he got.

“Is that you, Svlad?”

Hearing _that_ name in that horribly familiar voice threw Dirk off. The remnants of the words his brain had managed to salvage hastily abandoned ship, and he was left only with a disjointed vowel.

“I…”

“No need to explain. I was half-expecting this, you see, given your abilities,” a female voice sighed, “You came across the sister, no doubt, and figured out what was causing her so-called _illness_ , and then when you did some digging on Penthus, you came across my name. I thought I’d covered my tracks well, but not well enough for you, apparently.”

Dirk frowned, his confusion and curiosity quickly overthrowing his trepidation.

“Sorry, what? No… No, that’s not at all what happened at all. Whose sister? Are you talking about Amanda? What’s a Penthus?” he asked. Todd – hearing only half of the conversation – shot Dirk a confused look.

“You didn’t- you weren’t trying to find a cure for the pararibulitis? Then how did you even come across this case? How did you find my number if you weren’t researching Penthus?” Dr Miller – who sounded older, but still distinctly like herself – demanded, evidently caught off guard.

“The case started with the ghost thing, well, actually, more so with the death thing. We got your number from a medium,” Dirk replied, sounding just as confused as Dr Miller, “Wait- did you say cure for pararibulitis? There’s a cure for it?”

“ _Ghost_? What- what ghost? There’s no- oh.”

Whatever ground-breaking realisation Dr Miller had just had seemed to reverberate through the phone line, because it pushed Dirk into a suddenly uneasy silence too. She composed herself reasonably quickly though, and soon enough she was insisting that they meet in choppy sentences, and listing information for Dirk to copy down.

Taking orders from Dr Miller was something Dirk hadn’t ever imagined himself doing again, and certainly not voluntarily.

She hung up without saying goodbye, and Dirk was left wondering if Dr Miller was that rude to everybody, or just to people she still viewed as test subjects. It was hard to dwell on that painful thought though, when Todd was suddenly pressing a kiss to his cheek. Either Bart didn’t notice it, or didn’t care, because she simply snatched up the paper.

“What’re these numbers?” she demanded.

“Coordinates, so we can find Dr Miller,” Dirk replied, and Bart snorted.

“I ain’t never needed numbers to find anybody before, you guys do things weird,” she announced, which Dirk couldn’t help but find a tad hypocritical coming from somebody who didn’t understand how butter knives worked.

He had no idea where the coordinates would lead, or why Dr Miller hadn’t just given them an address, but he imagined it would all become clear soon enough. Dirk just hoped that the clarity was a good sort of clarity: a clarity that helped with Amanda’s illness, or that allowed Todd to be visible to everybody, or that gave Dirk just a little closure on what he’d left behind all those years ago.

It slipped Dirk’s mind, in that soft moment of optimism, that the universe must have sent Bart for a reason – and there was only one reason Bart went anywhere. Dirk excitedly explained what had happened to Todd, and Todd made excited exclamations in return, both forgetting all the while the one inevitable thing that was on the horizon.

Somebody was going to die.

 

* * *

 

Energy pulsed to life through a thousand copper wires at once, an immense surge of modernity already starting to flush out the mossy atmosphere that buildings started to acquire when left abandoned to the ravages of nature for too long.

This particular building hadn’t been abandoned for long enough to truly blend in with the woodland that encroached upon it, yet it still gave off the feeling of a building that shouldn’t exist in the present. Perhaps this was the fate of buildings that had such deep and cloying histories attached to them, or perhaps buildings already far from other civilised spaces were simply wont to blend more quickly into the wilderness surrounding them.

Such buildings, when re-inhabited so abruptly, tended to exude a peculiar sense of wrongness, as if displaced in their own timelines. With ivy growing over the northern walls and the whirring of high-tech machinery in the basement, the building was a contradiction, and contradictions would only be tolerated for so long before the nature of the building was forced to swing one way or the other. For now, though, it sat in an uncomfortable limbo.

Anybody looking upon it would have agreed, and then would have immediately left due to the intense discomfort brought on by staring too long at such a building. Nobody was around to have this opinion though - or rather, the one person who was around was in the basement, and she was much too busy to spend any amount of time considering how the building’s existence made her feel.

She had work to do, and limited time to do it. Soon, she would be entertaining guests.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I'm always apologising for these things being late, but I'm on holiday right now and the next chapter is already half-written, so hopefully that'll be out soon. Thank you to everybody who's been following this fic, your comments means so much <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated, and you can always come say hi to me on tumblr (gentledirkly).


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